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DOE Signals End to Yucca Mountain By Pulling NRC Application

Publication Date: 2/2/2010
Author: Tony Illia
Format: HTML

Description:Plans for a Southern Nevada national nuclear waste repository are all but kaput. The U.S. Energy Dept. said Feb. 1 it will withdraw its Nuclear Regulatory Commission application within 30 days. The move comes after DOE spent nearly three decades and $38 billion on waste repository tests and studies at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The agency planned to store up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste there from 80 sites in 35 states. Spent utility fuel and high-level defense waste would be placed in specially engineered containers housed inside a network of tunnels built deep within Yucca Mountain. Government estimates put the construction price-tag at about $100-billion.

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